


Faded and Gone

by sunflowerbright



Series: Day by Drabble [34]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerbright/pseuds/sunflowerbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie is insane - and is quite aware of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faded and Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Blue Skies prompt #28 (Tis the last rose of summer / Left blooming alone; / All her lovely companions / Are faded and gone; / No flower of her kindred, / No rosebud is nigh,/ To reflect back her blushes, /To give sigh for sigh.) (The Last Rose of Summer by Thomas Moore)

She remembers running, through tall grass, the sharp ends cutting her fingers and wrists like thin paper-pages of a book _(“look, this one Annie, it’s about a princess, and she falls in love”),_ the sound of someone screaming, wasting their final breath behind her, blood on her dressand she remembers running through sand, small stones cutting into her feet as her hair flies around her, rippling in the wind like dangling ropes on a ship _(“tighten it, Annie, like I showed you”)_ and the images are getting blurry, because she cannot remember if she was twelve – sand and wind – or fifteen when she was part of the Game – a world filled with tall grass and blood. So much blood.

She remembers the sound of her father’s voice and she remembers coming home and staring at a newly erected tomb, of the fresh carvings, _Cresta_ flowing out and becoming blurry amidst the tears.

The Capitol has no use for a mad winner. _(“but why would the Queen try to hurt her?” “because she’s evil Annie, she’s so jealous of her step-daughter that it has driven her insane”)_

She remembers thinking that it would seem futile, to kill a mad girls family, because what where mad people really but selfish and alone? And did the Capitol think it would make it worse, the fact that her father can’t see her now, doesn’t know that his daughter is a shivering, pitiful wreck?

She dreams if running too. She dreams of the grass getting shorter, her dress getting bloodier as she runs, as fast as she can, bare feet and burning lungs and there’s something heavy in her arms and when she looks down it’s a severed head, the head of the boy from her District, torn off by a favorite of the Capitol-masses.

Torn off by someone as insane as her.

_(“so, the Prince killed the evil Witch and saved the Princess”)_

He runs with her sometimes. Sometimes, when he cries at much as she does, when he looks broken and fragile and not at all like the Finnick she knows – _loves –_ she takes his hand and makes him run alongside her, through sand and water and sometimes it’s enough.

Sometimes, they can outrun everything together. Waves, the tide, the Capitol. Even their memories.

_(“and then they got married and lived happily ever after”)_

She doesn’t run anymore. She doesn’t see the point. But one night, her baby – their baby – opens his eyes and looks at her and she wonders if he can really see her. She hugs him closer and wonders, if anyone can now. If anyone but Finnick ever could – brave, brave Finnick, fighting against the Capitol. The Capitol, which is gone now.

Finnick’s gone. But her memories aren’t – and when she first notices how much their son looks like him, she wonders if that is a good or a bad thing. She can’t quite come up with an answer; but she starts dreaming of running again.

_(“the end”)_

 


End file.
